'If there is any genocide in Sri Lanka it is by the LTTE' says Lord
Naseby

Lord Naseby, Conservative Peer and Chair of All Party
Parliamentary Group on Sri Lanka said on Wednesday(March 11), if there
is any genocide in Sri Lanka it is by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil
Eelam (LTTE) who hold civilian Tamils by force as a human shield in the
war.

"This talk about genocide is rubbish. The only people
who are causing genocide are the LTTE who are holding the civilians as a
human shield," he said when a LTTE propagandist in the audience charged
the Sri Lanka government of genocide. Lord Naseby was referring to the
Tamil civilians who are being held against their will as a human shield
in the current war by the LTTE and who are being shot at by the LTTE
when they attempt to escape on foot and by boat.

The British House of Lords member made this public
statement, at a Forum discussion recorded in front of an audience ,
mostly consisting of British Tamil Forum members , at a studio in the
Media House in Central London and broadcast by Press TV of Iran. A
sympathetic labour member of Parliament to the Tamil movement in London,
Jeremy Corbyn was the moderator of the show.

Labour Party Member of European Parliament Robert
Evans, Suren Surendiran a spokesman of the LTTE front organization, the
British Tamil Forum and Douglas Wickramaratne , President of the Sinhala
Association of London were the other members of the discussion panel.

Lord Naseby further said, during the course of the
discussion, international pressure should be brought on the LTTE to
release all those civilians. He said no international pressure is
necessary, as Robert Evans suggested, to declare a ceasefire , by the
government. He said the Sri Lanka government is an elected government
and it is the LTTE who must down its arms and surrender to bring the
military conflict to an end.

The show had an ominous start when British Tamil
Forum's Suren Suthanthiran, said that a main grievance of the Tamils is
that Sinhalese being the only official language . One of the Sri Lankan
members of the audience pointed out Suren Surenthiran was making
factually incorrect statements. He said in Sri Lanka, the Sinhalese
Language and Tamil language with English are being used as official
languages. Immediately responding Lord Naseby said the cry about
Sinhalese language is very much dated as both Sinhalese and Tamil are
used as official languages. Then Suren Suthanthiran said he was speaking
about 1956.

From the audience: Why are you going back to 50 years. Is it to
hoodwink?

The part of the discussion on the language has been
edited out when this was broadcast on . Wednesday March 11, by the Press
TV.

The British Tamil Forum member Suren Suthanthiran
faced an embarrassing situation when an English woman in the audience
questioned about Child soldiers by the LTTE. The British Tamil Forum
spokesman, in reply, kept on repeating "to whichever religion one
belongs to it is wrong for one to kill another person" unskilfully
evading the question. When the embarrassed moderator of the show Jeremy
Corbyn, whose sympathies have been with the LTTE in the past, asked him
for a specific reply for a straight question he was coming out with the
same repetition turning the show into a comic show, participants
commented. When a pro-LTTE woman from the audience said why question
about child soldiers when so many thousands of Tamil children have been
killed the reply was broadcast. She was not substantiating the
statement.

It was very significant that the labour party MEP ,
Robert Evans was suggesting a Kosovo- Montenegro like solution for Sri
Lanka at a brief moment of the discussion. But the pro-LTTE MP who has
been repeating LTTE slogans in the past did not say how the LTTE is
going to form a state from a 50 square kilometre size area from which
they fight now nor did anybody asked him that question. Its population ,
kept under the threat of gun, are constantly running away from the area
at the risk of life, according to reports.

But Lord Naseby immediately reacted to Robert Evans by
telling that the vast majority of Tamils living in Sri Lanka do not want
a two state solution. And he said when the British were seeking a
solution for Northern Ireland they did not consider a two state
solution.

The British Tamil Forum spokesman said they wanted a
two state solution for Sri Lanka's problem.

Sinhala Association President Douglas Wickramaratne
said that it is ridiculous people talk about a Tamil homeland in Sri
Lanka since 60 percent of the Tamils live outside the Northern and
Eastern provinces of the country. He said over two thousand years, Sri
Lanka has been one unitary country governed under one king. He further
said since1985 Sri Lanka has been negotiating with the Tamil Tigers. He
said during this time the LTTE have used every ceasefire to rearm
themselves and prolong the war . Wickramaratne said a duely elected
government under a democratic system has every right to suppress
terrorism hurting the people. A paediatrician who did not announce her
name and spoke from the audience said she has had personal experience of
dealing with the parents of child soldiers who have left Northern and
Eastern provinces just because they feared that their children would be
kidnapped by the LTTE. She said children are being kidnapped for war by
the LTTE as UNESCO reports very clearly show.

More than 50 Sri Lankans who expressed that they
wanted to participate in the discussions by email did not even had the
courtesy of receiving a reply. An organizer at the studio said there had
been too many emails to be replied to. But all prominent British Tamil
Forum members were there to be seated and allowed to ask their
propagandist type questions. Ultimately, they did not make any results
since neither the questions nor their representative's replies failed to
make any impressions.